Editors' note: Michael McCrery, a dungeonmaster from Philadelphia,
Pa., brings us the account of some rather unusual happenings from a
recent D&D campaign. According to Mr. McCrery, ‘. . . The rust
monster mentioned is, in actuality, a non-player character who, several
‘years’ ago, was polymorphed into a rust monster in my dungeon.
Now, whenever someone rolls an encounter with a lone rust monster, I
apply a 05% chance that it will be this character. He cannot, of course,
address himself to anyone unless through the use of magic they
(players) attempt to speak to him. He is, however, more or less cognizant
of his former existence, and usually will only attack an expedition
when attacked first. And many novices will attack anything that moves,
out of panic. The combat described was actually fought, with the weapons
stated. In some cases, some strange numbers were generated as
modifiers for the appropriate weapons. For example, a haunch of
moose acts as a +1 mace, while a pencil acts as a -5 dagger. At least, in
the right hands. . .”

PROLOGUE
“ . . . and so there I was. A rust monster, and stuck in that dungeon.”

“But surely you tried to escape, “I said. “In all of that time didn’t
anyone recognize you for what you were?”

“The closest I ever came to being rescued,” my guest replied,
“was several years back when I stumbled onto a group raiding the
dungeon. I figured that if I followed them they would lead me to the
surface, eventually.”

“What happened to them?” I questioned.

“A real bunch of nerds. They obviously didn’t know anything
about dungeons and almost got themselves killed off the short time I
was with them. When a Hobgoblin king sent them on a quest I figured I
would be better off on my own again.”

“With your years of experience in that dungeon,” I prompted,
“surely you can relate some details that might help others to survive
their expeditions.” I lit a taper in the fire and touched the flame to my
pipe.

“There’s not really much to tell,” my guest replied, pausing to
scratch behind one ear. “It’s more a matter of experience than general
knowledge.”

“Isn’t there anything that might help?” I asked.

“Oh, maybe some small things, but they’re more in the line of
common sense than anything else.”

“For instance?” I prodded.

“Well, I guess I could tell you a little about this bunch of dimwits I
encountered. They did everything wrong. They had no business even
being in a dungeon. The way they were prepared they wouldn’t have
survived a trip to the grocery store.

“When I first encountered them I was hopeful enough, as they
looked like blooded warriors. Oh, boy, was I ever wrong about that! I
can still picture them approaching me from out of the darkness. I saw
them coming almost a hundred meters away. They were boldly marching
down a two meter corridor, torches ablaze, announcing their coming
to all within sight. At first I figured that they must be some pretty
heavy dudes to expect to get away with such an elementary lack of
caution. They didn’t even have a thief scouting the way for them. But I
began to suspect the truth when I saw that they didn’t even have a
dwarf with them. Can you imagine that? Not even a dwarf!”

I shook my head in amazement as I scribbled notes. My guest
continued:

“There were five of them. There were two fighter types, the first
one wearing shiney new armor and carrying a rusty, nicked battleaxe
that looked like it had come from somebody’s trash heap1. The other
was a real skinny dude carrying a sack with a bent sword sticking out of
it. Between these two a magicer amd a samurai were carrying the
second biggest shield I had ever seen with another samurai on it 2. The
shield was also rusty and dented. It was then that I started to give up
hope that my salvation had come, but I decided that it couldn’t hurt to
try them, especially as it had been almost two years since I had seen any
outsiders.

“I stood my ground and waited for them to catch up to me,” he
continued.” When they finally saw me they didn’t seem afraid, but the
magicer did try to cast some kind of spells. I have no idea what they
were supposed to do. Nothing seemed to happen. Then he tried to lure
me away by casting a ventriloquism spell and calling to me. He used
several languages, most of which I couldn’t understand. I decided that I
would have to make the first move.

“Slowly I approached them, and, although the smell of iron was
almost irresistible, I managed to restrain myself and get across to them
my friendly intentions. At least they picked up the shield again and continued
on their way. When I followed they didn’t try to dissuade me. I
figured that maybe they were returning to the surface with their wounded.
Wrongo again.”

“I think I know the kind you mean,” I said, refreshing my guest’s
drink (Geritol over carriage bolts). “A bunch of Sunday explorers. But
you haven’t really given me much hard information.”

“I’m coming to that,” he said, sniffing at my andirons. “Rotten
alloy,” he muttered. Suddenly he turned and looked me full in the face.
“Do you know,” he said, “those idiots were carrying the Sword of
Toshio3 in that sack and didn’t even know it? And they with a perfectly
healthy samurai in the party.”

He lay back down in front of the fire, and after a lap at his drink
continued. “But it’s hard information you want,” he said. “Well, I
followed them through the passages of that place, and they didn’t even
know where they were going. They hadn’t had the foresight to carry
any food or water with them and were already hurting when I had encountered
them. After several hours things got pretty tight. Finally, we
came to a fountain and they stopped to drink. They didn’t even realize
that they were taking potions. The mix in that fountain constantly
changes so I don’t know exactly what they got, but some of them could
have been quite useful. As it turned out, at least one was . . . .”

(MIS)ADVENTURE AT A DOOR4
After resting, the party tried one of the smaller exits from the
Room of Fountains and found themselves in another of the seemingly
endless two meter corridors. The rust monster that had been following
them (because of Richard’s high charisma, they supposed) continued to
tag along.

After an uneventful trek they came to a door blocking the corridor.
A quick consultation produced the consensus that the door should
be tried. Fred, their door opener, his strength the major resource of his
body, grabbed the handle before the others could stop him and tried the
door. It never occurred to him that the space beyond might be
occupied, and so the others stood in horror watching as he rattled the
bolted portal.

Failing in his first attempt, Fred stepped back and spit into his
hands. He got a firm grip on the handle once more and got the door in
his face as it was pushed open from the other side.

“What do you want?” demanded the bass voice of the figure confronting
them. They looked up. And up. The man facing them either
had a bad glandular disorder, or was a midget giant.

“We seek passage,” said the weak voice of Me, the magicer, filtering
upward from behind the shield. At the first sight of this behemoth
he had rolled poor Ari to the floor and pulled the shield up in front of
him.

His eyes searching for a moment, the figure blocking the door
finally found the tassle of Me’s hat sticking up beyond the rusty shield.
“How about that!” he said. “A talking shield. Well, shield, passage
you’ll not have!”

Fred, not being one for diplomacy, cried, “Then we’ll force our
way past!” and pushed against the figure with all of his eighteen
strength. The man stood his ground, laughing.

“If it’s a fight you want,” he said, “just a moment while I grab my
armor, ” and slammed the door in Fred’s much abused face.

With the closing of the door Richard the Boor elected to exercise
the better part of valor, but, before he could fully turn and execute a
strategic withdrawal, the door flew open again. Their adversary stood
before them, dressed only in a plastic bag. “Draw your weapons!” he
demanded.

“Varlet!” yelled Fred, noting the other’s empty hands. “Woulds’t
have me do battle with an unarmed man and so dishonor myself?” In
reply his adversary let fly a beefy fist catching the witless warrior on the
button. “Ooof!” said Fred, sitting on the floor.

“Hey, Hengel,” called a voice from beyond the door. “How many
are there?”

“Three warm and one stiff,” Hengel called back over his
shoulder. “And a rusty shield with a funny hat.”

“That’s Hengel,” cried another voice. “Always one to hog all of
the fun.”

“Okay, okay,” Hengel cried, stepping back into the room. “Come
on in, you guys,” he called out the door. “I’ve got some friends here
who want to play, too.”

Fred, never one to refuse a fight (or win one, either) jumped up
and, drawing his battle-axe in the mistaken belief that it was enchanted
issued his battle cry and charged into the room.

Richard the Boor turned to the others and said, “We’ll never get
out of here without him to open doors for us.”

“Of course you realize,” said Sauri Itasha, pulling out his katana,
“this encounter could have been avoided if you hadn’t missed catching
our idiot when he tripped over that pit.”

“Don’t blame me,” responded Richard irritably. He was always a
little touchy about any subject that could spoil his chances for
Paladinhood. “I never voted to take an idiot with us in the first place,”
he said. “He was only a liability to us. Had to be picked up every
hundred feet or so, and always dribbling a trail of blood behind us for
every monster that came along to follow.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” called Me, stepping between them.
“Are we going to save Fred from his folly, or stand here and bicker
among ourselves?”

The others stood a while considering the ramifications of just
pushing the door closed and walking off. “Come, come,” said Me,
hastening before someone called for a vote. “We’ll need him to open
these stupid doors for us, anyway.”

“Yeh,” said Richard. “Besides, I probably couldn’t be a Paladin
if we just left him without making some effort to help.” And then, in a
rare flash of psychic ability, “But that fool is going to be the death of
me yet!”

Richard pushed the door fully open and they reconnoitered the
situation. A few feet inside the door Fred stood, panting, blood dripping
from his face and pooling on the floor. As they watched he cut
loose a mighty slash that buried the head of his axe in his opponent’s
side. Calmly, the man responded with a left jab followed by a lightening
one-two, and the blood ran freer from Fred’s nose.

Weapons in hand, Richard and Sauri rushed into the room. As
they did so two more figures such as the one confronting Fred stepped
up to meet them. The first, wearing plate, engaged Sauri with sword.
The second had apparently been preparing lunch when they had tried
the door, since he was standing over a Coleman stove with a big frying
pan. Although he was naked when Richard and Sauri rushed into the
room, he had seized a handy meat cleaver and, with one swift chop,
severed a haunch of moose from a nearby hanging carcass and spun to
face Richard, the haunch grasped firmly in his hand. He tossed the
cleaver back over his shoulder.

A fourth figure sat at a small table sharpening his sword. “Hey,
Hengel,” he cried. “I thought you said there were four of them.”
When Hengel turned to answer, Fred put his back into a mighty chop,
designed to split Hengel from crown to crotch. Hengel reached out a
hand and grabbed the battle-axe in mid-swing, checking it.

“Well, there’s kind of a runty magician out there. You want I
should fetch him in for you?” he said. Fred was straining to pull his
weapon from the other’s grasp. This was a difficult task because his
feet were barely on the floor.

“Don’t bother,” sighed Me, drawing his dagger. “I’m coming.”
Pushing the over-sized shield before him Me entered the room. He
noted that Sauri’s opponent had tossed away his sword and was fighting
with a penknife. He also saw that Richard’s helmet was agleam with,.
blood, but not his own.

Me strode into the room and faced the last of its occupants. The
man stood and, seeing what appeared to be a rusty shield wearing a
funny hat facing him with a dagger, laughed. He glanced over the top
of the shield and said, “Oh, there you are,” and laughed again. He
tossed his sword back onto the table and reached inside of his
chainmail. His hand came out holding a pencil. Glancing at the blunted
point he turned to a sharpener on the wall. Inserting the implement, he
began softly humming as he turned the crank.

Being more interested in survival than in some abstract fighter’s
creed, Me seized on this opportunity to jump past his shield and attack.
His knuckles white on the pommel, he repeatedly plunged the dagger
into the man’s back.

His task, completed, the man turned and stared vacantly at Me,
while the panicked magicer fled back to the safety of his shield. The
man followed casually.

Me wrestled the shield up before him and crouched like some turtle
waiting for an alligator to lose interest. His opponent walked up and,
with one thrust, rammed the pencil stub, and a good length of his arm,
through both the shield and the magicer’s body. He withdrew his arm
and, as Me fell to the floor, he wiped the blood from his wrist and went
to look for a ball-point pen, realizing that a pencil was useless against 
plate armor.

Meanwhile, Fred was inflicting a good deal more damage on his
opponent than the man was showing signs of receiving. At one point,
Hengel put a foot across Fred’s toes and used him like a punching
clown. A right cross, and wait for him to pop back up, a left jab, and
wait for him to pop back up, etc. Fred was rapidly tiring.

Sauri, meanwhile, had found his opponent to be a little more agile
than expected. He was having some trouble hitting the man, while his
foe in no way suffered the same ill. Indeed, Sauri was a little worried
about the damage he was taking. Then, a sudden thrust, and he was
looking up his opponent’s arm as the man pulled his knife from the
gaping wound in Sauri’s chest. Sauri felt a great wave of pain ripple
through him, and fell to his knees. He knelt there saying a last prayer to
his ancestors, awaiting the final blackness. After a few minutes he
realized that such a wound should have been instantly fatal. He opened
his eyes and looked down, beneath his mail. Then his eyes spread wide
as he watched the ragged edges of the wound creep together and form a
scar, which slowly faded from view.

Muttering a hurried prayer of thanks, Sauri didn’t pause to
question this miracle, but made use of it. Grabbing up his katana he
leapt to his feet screamed “Banzai!", and attacked his equally stunned
foe with a renewed vigor. Several fatal wounds later he managed to
make a solid attack and was rewarded by his blade slicing through the
man’s shoulder, his arm dropping to the floor. Sauri’s training took
over and instinctively he stepped in and dealt the final blow, his blade
raking along below the man’s chin to cleanly sever the head.

Sauri turned then, to see how Richard fared. He was in time to see
one last blow of the now pulped haunch descend and reduce Richard to
a lump on the floor. Not waiting, Sauri stepped in and soon had this
man reduced to his components, like some ghoulish butcher shop.

Seeing what had happened to his friends, the fourth man stopped
his search for a pen and leapt for his sword, but too late to avail him
any protection. With the flush of success and the promise of invulnerability
Sauri soon laid him low, his wounds closing of their own accord
almost as soon as they were made.

Muttering in his native tongue something that sounded like
“Matsubisipanasanik”, Sauri leapt to the attack and soon this last
opponent joined his companions.

While Fred strove to push his nose back into some semblence of its
former self, Sauri checked Richard and Me and found them beyond
help. He then set to searching the room. By the time he finished, Fred
had tried the only other exit from the room, the door with the big sign
reading, ‘Major Treasure Room’, and found that it resisted his greatest
efforts. He failed to notice that the keyhole matched the pattern of the
key laying on the table.

“What the hell,” said Sauri, coming up empty handed. Fred
shrugged. They dragged the shield back to where Ari was propped up
against a wall and, lowering him onto the shield, began their long trek
back.

EPILOGUE

“Idiots never made it, though,” my guest said, his voice now
somewhat slurred. “The nerds tried to sneak through the audience
chamber of the Hobgoblin king while he was sitting in judgement. But
they convinced him to spare them and, in return, agreed to undertake a
quest. That’s when I split. Even if they did lead me out, I didn’t want to
be seen in their company.”

MORAL

When you drink from a public fountain, you never know what
you’ll get.

Footnotes

1. It has been ascertained from other sources that the party in
mention had just ripped-off a giant’s trash-masher.

2. Ari the Samurai on the shield had been paralyzed in a previous
encounter.

3. Sword of Toshio, looks like an ordinary sword, bent and worn
from use, which has been discarded. But in the hands of a samuri it
takes on its true appearance as a katana of great power. Extremely
lawful. Intelligence of 12, Ego of 3. Has a special purpose. Named for
its first owner, Toshio Kubiyashi.

4. As reconstructed from my guest’s remarks, and other sources.
— Author